All we can do is live
by Gamma Cavy
Summary: What's gone is forever lost, and all a former homunculus can do is live, finding strength in what remains behind.


All we can do is live

He can still recall the feeling of skin warping into armor, of hands bearing claws, of the shifts and warps in the structure of his body. Still see the Ouroborus on the back of his hand.

He directs thoughts at a place that remains hollow, and expects an answer, even two years later. He takes the Stone that cost so much in Amestris into his body before the eyes of the Emperor, claiming to demonstrate that even if every limb is lost, every drop of blood shed, and all flesh reduced to ash, one whose blood has been replaced by the Stone will undoubtedly rise again.

He hates himself for what he is doing even as he does it, but he knows he would hate himself more should he allow his imperial father to take it. The throne would never be his, then, and while he could live with that if a good man held it, he and his little sister agree on this much at least: the emperor is not a good man.

So he takes the stone, demonstrates the cost of immortality in the agony of the change, and demands the throne, retaining his body and sanity with the ease of experience in the face of this devouring torrent, though there is no single mind to share anymore. He is the heir of Yao. He must survive.

( _Besides, Ed threatened to 'kick his ass to drachma' if he failed to become emperor. That's a serious threat_.)

The former emperor relinquishes the throne reluctantly, but does relinquish it, and Ling feels a pang of disgust as he watches the man cower regally before him, fearing this power he does not understand. This man is venerated by their people as a god, when he is no more a true king than Wrath ever was.

The first assassination attempt was less than two months later. Lan Fan proved her worth to the position of Emperor's Shadow by thwarting it soundly, and in the process revealing that he had been right to replace half the guard, since the assassin was the former emperor's chief guard.

He watches this, and feels a surge of possessive pride in his chosen guard/friend, a feeling that had never been possessive before, but was tinged with the flavor of Greed's thoughts, reminding him that though the homunculus was gone, the new shapes he had left in Ling's mind remained.

Over the years he finds himself growing better loved and respected, and the attempts on his life decrease, until the Elric brothers and Ed's mechanic come to visit, bringing their own style of chaos with them.

The reactions of his people upon discovering his friend's father amuses him more than it should, but no one has ever accused him of being a sourpuss. Still, he keeps a wary eye on the politics surrounding them, concerned about how certain factions that exemplified everything Envy looked down on about humanity would react to this.

And as it turns out, he was right to be wary, though he had expected either of the brothers to be the ones at threat.

And Ed is going to try to _kill_ him for this, because Winry was kidnapped.

In an attempt to prevent his best friend from killing him, and because he's missed this, he comes with the rescuers, the group in total consisting of himself, Lan Fan, Ed, Al, Mei, her homicidal panda, and Al's tiger cub. It feels like those days in Amestris, albeit with lower stakes.

Perhaps it's the memory, perhaps the way he thinks, perhaps the company and circumstances, but he finds himself expecting more often to lose control of his body, to be sharing the control, to feel another mind where his ends, though Greed fails to materialize now any more than he did any other time Ling has expected him. Still, he doesn't try to change his mental state.

Then, his sword is knocked from his hand, and he knows he can't dodge the next blow fast enough. Still, he tries to minimize the damage, even knowing that the poison probably won't kill him it will _hurt_ , and he is not a homunculus any more than he is like Hohenheim. He does not regenerate.

As he dodges, something _shifts._ A familiar shift, and the poisoned weapon glances harmlessly off the arm he had used to block it. He spares a moment to glance at the tear in his sleeve, and sees what he had both expected and not expected.

Dully gleaming charcoal grey, and the familiar warped feeling, and he laughs, leaping back into the fight and extending the Ultimate Shield completely down his arms as he goes for his Dao.

"Greed?" Ed hollers questioningly, and he shakes his head, a weird, warped parody of an old exchange. "Still Ling," he replies, claws on one hand, sword in the other, hysterical laughter bubbling in his chest as he _moves_ and glimpses, on the back of his armored left hand, the Ouroborus.

He's still Ling, but Greed left something behind, and how can he not laugh at the irony. He's pretty sure he'll collapse when this is over, and that his sanity ought to be questioned, but he doesn't care, anymore than, in the moment, he can bring himself to care what he is, or what he has become.

Human? Homunculus? He doesn't care. He is Ling. He is Ed's best friend, and he is still, in part, the shadow of Greed.

He _is_ Emperor, and the fools who thought that kidnapping his best friend's mechanic/girlfriend was a good idea and would somehow lead to him off the throne and Ed not claiming Xerxes have another think coming to them.

He and Ed will make sure of it, and so he relishes the old familiar shifts in the makeup of his skin as he draws the shield across most of his body, and as their enemies scream about a demon, he leaps joyfully into battle.

For after all, why not?

* * *

 **A.N: Because I don't think Ling will ever be entirely human again, after the changes made to his body in the process of becoming a homunculus. I've had this written for a while now, and finally dug it out of the hard drive to post.**


End file.
